It’s been over a year since the original publication of Bon: The Last Highway and on 19 November 2018, I am officially releasing an updated 496-page edition of the book containing a new introduction with new revelations related to Bon’s last hours.This paperback edition is being released simultaneously by Penguin Random House in Australia and Black & White Publishing in Great Britain. UK and international readers (including USA and Canada) can order through Book Depository or Amazon UK or Waterstones, as well as usual booksellers. Australian readers can try Amazon Australia or Booktopia and usual retailers.

So what’s new? Considering Bon died nearly 39 years ago and it took two years just to write Parts Four and Five of the book, the section dealing with his death, fresh information is not easy to come by. I investigated Bon's death with everything I had the first time around. Nothing was left in the tank. However, I think readers of the original edition and any newcomers to the book will be interested in information related to the following:

* The late Mick Cocks of Rose Tattoo. Was he with Bon that night? Was that why Malcolm Young allegedly tried to punch him afterwards?* The London drug-dealing connections of Alistair Kinnear. Alistair was allegedly a dealer of high-grade heroin, which would explain why Bon was with him if he was looking to score heroin.* A third eyewitness who believes Bon snorted heroin, in addition to the two at The Music Machine I found in the original edition. One of the original two eyewitnesses who asked for anonymity recently passed away. * Four adults were allegedly inside Alistair’s apartment while Bon was in Alistair’s car outside: the two mentioned in the original edition plus two more individuals. If so, why didn't they carry him inside? * A possible heroin link involving the late Yes bassist Chris Squire. And more.

The new information in this updated edition only reinforces what I proposed the first time around: Bon died of a heroin overdose. Whether it was concealed on purpose or missed through sheer incompetence – or both – is for readers to decide.Had the witnesses who saw Bon at The Music Machine spoken to the police, the coroner or been called to give evidence at his death inquest and stated they believed Bon had snorted heroin, I believe the outcome (a finding of “acute alcohol poisoning” and “death by misadventure”) would have been very different. The investigating authorities might have done their jobs properly and looked a bit harder. We would have got to the truth. Instead we got a whitewash.Bon deserved better all round.​Rock in peace, Bon. May the 40th anniversary of your death in 2020 finally be celebrated with some truth and honesty instead of more ignorance and wilful denial from those who'd prefer your story read like a Little Golden Book of Peter Pan.

Before she died in December 2016, Bon Scott's great love Silver Smith sent me two pieces of writing which give tremendous insight into both Bon Scott's private world and the dynamic he had with other members of AC/DC. She never wrote anything else. This is the second part. The first part can be read here. Published with kind permission of her son, Sebastian.

I’d spent a decade around musicians and bands in all stages of development, in Australia, the United States and London, from raw beginnings and failures to the ultra successful. There was a common thread with all these people: their taste was usually wide and often very different from their own style; and there was always interest and excitement in new changes, new albums by their contemporaries, plus historic blues, bluegrass, country, R&B, etc. We’d sit around for hours on the floor drinking tea, smoking dope, occasionally snorting [heroin] and enjoying hearing something for the first time, discussing and dissecting. No wonder Bon came to [my flat at] Gloucester Road in London as often as he could. He must have been starving for music.He and I both had very similar tastes and musical backgrounds. We loved distinctive singers of any style, beautiful harmonies, and of course songs from the radio in our youth and childhood. We had a lot of fun trying to outdo each other with remembering lyrics to Johnny Horton, Everly Brothers, Gene Pitney and Hank Williams.According to Bon, in the band no one was allowed to play or listen to anything but AC/DC although Angus Young had some Chuck Berry tapes. I had never come across this before. There was an atmosphere of AC/DC versus the rest of the world, and they were suspicious of everyone including press, other bands, music business people, and seemingly anyone who wasn’t from the western suburbs of Sydney. Apart from Angus’s stage uniform, they had no interest in style or fashion, sticking to denim and snot, pretty much, and I was amazed to find out later the band had its origins in glam rock, as per David Bowie and Marc Bolan.

AC/DC with Radio Luxembourg DJ Ken Evans, London, 1976

I had been away from Australia for three years at this point and had no idea how successful AC/DC were as well as no idea of who the new bands were in Australia. Because of this, I made a terrible faux pas the very first time I met them. Bon and I were picked up in a small van going somewhere on AC/DC business. They were obviously not expecting me to be with Bon, and the atmosphere was chilly. No one spoke. No introductions were made, and there was an odour of eau de B.O. in the back of the dark grotty van. Capital Radio (the only station in London that played rock at that time) was coming through the speakers and was broadcasting a new, never-played-before single.I had a good ear for picking commercial hits even if they weren’t my style, recognising a good hook and singalong chorus, and this one had it all, as well as a strong link to the English obsession with cricket and really clean production. So attempting to break through the ice I said, “Wow! That’s clever. Straight to number one!” or something similar, and the temperature plunged another 20 degrees. It was AC/DC’s arch enemy Sherbet, who I had never heard of. I had no idea what crime I had committed. Bon just gave me a look to indicate, “I’ll tell you later.” I was bewildered as to why on earth Bon would think riding in the van was a good way for me to meet them. They didn’t seem to enjoy it any more than I did.

In their company I always felt really uncomfortable, as though I’d landed on another planet. They were all very young except for Bon, and had a very juvenile ‘use them and abuse them’ attitude to female fans. The only literature they read were comics and ‘stick books’. They were never overtly rude or unkind to me, and in fact on a few occasions when things got a bit out of hand (overly excited drunken fans and lack of security) Malcolm Young and Angus Young were both fiercely gallant and protective of me. I came to realise to my surprise that, despite their misgivings about me, I was considered part of their ‘gang’ – at least at that particular moment.I never intruded on the band, made a point of staying out of the way, and after my Sherbet faux pas never ever voiced an opinion on anything. I’m guessing here, but the number of AC/DC gigs over the years I went to was less than a dozen. I was always inspired seeing them. The energy they generated and expended was ridiculous; the audience totally captivated. In their heyday AC/DC were at the top of the game when it came to live performance.

Offstage, the atmosphere around Malcolm and Angus was always tense, no one wanting to get on their wrong side. I never heard them laugh properly, although they had sneering down to a fine art. Mark Evans was clean and fresh, a nice boy, and Phil Rudd was okay when not directly in Malcolm’s or Angus’s presence. Their manager, Michael Browning, was an older version of the Youngs in manner. He seemed to take an instant dislike to me, which persisted even after it became obvious that his sister Coral and I were becoming good friends and got on like the proverbial house on fire.On tour Malcolm and Angus usually stayed in their rooms, playing guitar, and had no interest in what was outside, no matter what city in the world they were in. Bon went to bookshops, markets and art galleries, buying the dozens of postcards he sent to people. He was the most prolific letter writer I’ve ever come across, even surpassing my mother, the family chronicler.

AC/DC, 1976

On one Australian tour the last gig was Perth, and we were leaving the following night to return to England. I went to the gig with Isa to take care of her and protect her from the young girl fans and from her own naivete. She loved every second of it. Bon didn’t come back to the hotel; not a surprise as he had a lot of catching up to do, and at breakfast the next morning there was only Phil around. He said he was going sailing on the Perth River and asked if I wanted to come. We hired a little idiot-proof catamaran. It was a real fun day and a contrast to the normal routine. Phil was always more laidback and easygoing than the Youngs.Both being completely amateur sailors, we made mistakes, got drenched a few times, laughed a lot, got sunburnt, and went back to the hotel thinking we still had three hours before the flight to a cold, cold London. The band and Browning were in the lobby scowling when we arrived – there’d been a cock-up about the time. Bon had packed for me and kept out a change of clothes, but it was a horrible long-haul flight back. I didn’t have anything with me I would normally take on a 28-hour flight into winter and my skin and hair were caked in salt. Phil had to wear his sailing clothes. Bon was fine, but the Youngs were really angry with me and also with Phil.

AC/DC and Coral Browning

Apparently, to their way of thinking, we had committed some terrible breach of their etiquette by spending the day together. This was all so weird. To rub more salt into the wound, when we got to the airport we had to sit around for three hours before the flight. No one spoke to Bon, Phil or me for the entire flight or on arrival in London. This was the power of the Youngs.A year or so down the track when they were touring America relentlessly (one day off a fortnight if they were lucky) Bon still did all the press on his own, and Phil was still doing all the driving. Malcolm and Angus were too insular to do any of the publicity and Bon was a natural. Phil had reached exhaustion point. Bon, who normally kept his head down in the band and did what he was told, was upset and worried about Phil, and really angry that no one else seemed to care about it. But he didn’t speak up. They were definitely the most success-driven band that I’ve ever come across.

Silver Smith, 2006

In the early days of their conquest of Britain and Europe, Michael Browning and his wife Julie rented a cottage in Mayfair, entertained [Australian TV personality] Molly Meldrum, and flew back and forth on Concorde to the States. The boys were on 50 pounds a week (which didn’t even cover Bon’s Scotch bill) and the rest of the band lived in dreary houses in Barnes and then Fulham. Michael’s sister Coral had been a music publicist and artist manager in London for quite a few years, and her opinion was well respected by the journos from Melody Maker, NME and Sounds, the weekly rock rags. She only represented artists and bands she liked and believed in, and had a lot of integrity. In the opinion of people who were around back then she was a huge influence on AC/DC’s early success, because of her hard work and reputation with the press. She was on a shitty wage, too, and had dropped her other artists to help her brother Michael. He had no contacts and a brusque, rude manner, and she had the respect of everyone in the business.Bon, Coral and I got on really well. She was sophisticated, smart, and more importantly, our age. Like others along the band’s road to success, she was dumped unceremoniously by AC/DC with no respect or recognition for the enormous part she had played in breaking the band in Britain and Europe.

Before she died in December 2016, Bon Scott's great love Silver Smith sent me two pieces of writing which give tremendous insight into both Bon Scott's private world and the dynamic he had with other members of AC/DC. She never wrote anything else. This is the first story. Published with kind permission of her son, Sebastian.

Despite usually being the person most written off at night, Bon would get up the next day, very sparky. As he would have said, ‘Shit, shower, shave and shampoo’, then it was on the road. He would pack and be the first to appear downstairs while on tour. While waiting for everyone else he’d start working. At home he would pick up one of his notebooks, and think of hooks, and then verses. They were clever (he admired Steely Dan) but knew he would have to cut out any social, political or emotional content. You don’t fuck with the formula. Often he’d leave something in anyway knowing it would get cut in the studio.

Angus and Malcolm Young

His method was to play with phrases, and he knew I was articulate and had a wide vocabulary so he’d ask me for suggestions, like "What’s another word for such-and-such?" I introduced him to Roget’s Thesaurus for on the road, and bought him books of proverbs, widely known myths, legends, etc. A lot of the phrases in songs originated in the letters he wrote. The one that starts ‘She was a fast machine/She kept her motor clean’ [a song never credited to Bon, ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’] was written a long, long time before it was produced. The ‘American thighs’ bit was there for the big market they were about to try and crack. Hey, it’s not ‘Layla’, or ‘Wild Horses’ or ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, but Bon was Bon, not Dylan, Clapton or the Glimmer Twins.

Bon was a good quick reader, and he was delighted to discover there were better books around than the ones found in airports and newsagents. He loved Anaïs Nin, and the Claudine stories, Chéri and The Last of Chéri, but found the later works of Colette a bit too intellectual and introspective. He liked Doris Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor, and The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five. He especially liked Anthony Trollope’s Palliser series for reading on the road because they would last for a while, and thought Samuel Pepys’s diary was a hoot. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness made an impression. ‘That’s a lot of power in such a little book,’ he’d say. I scavenged in secondhand shops for books by American crime writers like Ross Macdonald, which he could take and swap on the road.

Bon and Silver

I believe reading became his escape from the severe cultural restrictions placed on him by his role and his image in AC/DC and the musical and social rules of the Youngs. He had to have been missing the stimulation and company of his friends of the decade before [in The Valentines and Fraternity], the divine madness of ‘Uncle’ [John Ayers], the sanity of Bruce Howe, the social and political awareness of Vince Lovegrove, the sharp brain and cynicism of John Freeman. The large circle we both came from in Adelaide held some very amazing and talented people. No wonder he dived headfirst into the little ‘salon’ in the attic at Gloucester Road. At the time we got together in London, I had been delving into comparative religions, western esoteric traditions, alchemy, Enochian Squares, the Golden Dawn and their famous fallouts and offshoots. I had silver jewellery made for us engraved with symbols I’d researched hoping to keep Bon safe and lucky. His was pulled from his neck one night when he had Angus Young on his shoulders and couldn’t do anything to get it back. I’ve seen it in a few published photographs.

Bon

Bon added bookshops to the interesting places to visit in strange countries and cities, and brought back some wonderful finds. He once spent the whole afternoon talking to a middle-aged gay couple that owned a women’s bookshop in San Francisco and gave them backstage passes to the gig that night. They liked him so much they went to the gig, and called in on him backstage with a present for his girl, a wonderful biography of Colette with lots of photos of her childhood and travelling-theatre period. Bon’s notebooks disappeared within 48 hours of his death, along with his few possessions, a lot of mine that were on loan, and a few things loaned by our friends. He’d just moved to the very first flat of his own a few weeks before he died, and only had a suitcase. I was living in the tiniest attic of all, saving to buy a place, and had a lot of things packed up in three big trunks, which were covered in cushions and, along with a bed on the floor, provided the seating. So I loaned him some nice things along with a lot of precious LPs he wanted to tape so he could be comfortable while he was getting settled. Poof! All gone, as if by magic. I believe it’s easy to see in a couple of the albums released after his death what lyrics were his and what were not.

A real staple of AC/DC’s live shows, in fact the first song they ever played on stage when they arrived in the United States in 1977. Significantly, “Live Wire” was also the first song AC/DC played live in England, at theRed Cowin Hammersmith in 1976.

There’s an evocative passage in Mark Evans’s book about it that aptly describes the sonic sledgehammer that is AC/DC: “We opened with ‘Live Wire.’ My bass intro drifted in the air, Mal’s ominous guitar chords joined in, Phil’s hi-hat cymbals tapped away and then the song exploded when Angus and the drums absolutely f***ing erupted. I felt like I was lifted off the ground, it was that powerful.”

Jimmy Douglass, who was the engineer on Live From The Atlantic Studios, an album that opens with “Live Wire”, told me: “I remember the feeling of standing and just looking at the speakers, listening and going, ‘Hooooly s**t.’”That’s how powerful AC/DC’s music is. For me, there’s nothing like AC/DC and I believe it’s their primal energy, what Jimmy calls their “pure energy fire”, that is the secret of their popularity around the world.

Mick Wall, the British rock writer and author of AC/DC: Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be, called this track “a two-bit piece of head-bopping guff.” Not sure what track he was listening to when he wrote that – maybe old Mick was having a bad day – but for me it’s one of the last of AC/DC’s classic boogie tracks and probably the best of the lot. Former AC/DC bass player Mark Evans loves it almost as much as he loves “Highway To Hell”.

​“Rock ’N’ Roll Damnation” has everything you want in an AC/DC song plus shakers, tambourines and handclaps, a real Motown touch thatGeorge YoungandHarry Vandabrought to bear on the recording. They did something similar with theJohn Paul Younghit “Love Is In The Air”. Percussion was an underlying feature of many early AC/DC songs. This one really grooves. I never get tired of hearing it.“Rock ’N’ Roll Damnation” was AC/DC’s first hit in the UK and a lot of the credit has to go to Atlantic’sMichael Klenfner, best known as the fat guy with the moustache who stops Jake and Elwood backstage in the final reel of The Blues Brothers and offers them a recording contract. (“Cold Hearted Man” was the song that made way for it, but you can find it on UK first pressings of Powerage.)

He was senior vice-president of the company at the time, and insisted the band go back and record a radio-worthy single after they delivered the first cut of Powerage to New York. It was a masterstroke and gave AC/DC something of a lifeline when they were in danger of being dumped from the label.Michael was a real champion of AC/DC behind the scenes at Atlantic, and never got the recognition he was due while he was still alive (he passed away in 2009). He ended up having a falling out with Atlantic president Jerry Greenberg over the choice of producer for Highway To Hell and got fired. But it was Klenfner who arguably did more for the band than anyone else while they were at Atlantic.

“BEDLAM IN BELGIUM" (1983)​​This is a massively underrated barnstormer off the much-maligned (unfairly, I think) Flick Of The Switch. The album was missing Mutt Lange, but the Youngs did have his very capable engineer, Tony Platt, as co-producer in the studio at Compass Point in the Bahamas. Tony’s a real pro. Flick also features the slamming “Nervous Shakedown”, as heavy as a George Foreman uppercut, echoes of which can be heard on “Rock or Bust” off AC/DC’s most recent album of the same name.But what I find most interesting about “Bedlam In Belgium” is that it’s based on a fracas that broke out on stage in Kontich, Belgium, in 1977, involving Bon Scott, the rest of the band, and the local authorities. AC/DC had violated a noise curfew and things got hairy. An excellent account of it can be read here: http://acdcbelgium.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/bedlam-in-kontich-1977-story-behind.html and here: http://acdcbelgium.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/bedlam-in-belgium-from-eye-witness.html.

Brian Johnson, more than half a decade later, wrote the lyrics with such tactility (the song carries a Young/Young/Johnson credit); almost as if he was the one getting walloped by the Belgian police:

He gave me a crack in the back with his gunHurt me so bad I could feel the blood run

Bon-esque! Unfortunately for Brian, he was removed from lyric-writing duties from The Razors Edge (1990) onwards. All songs up to and including 2008’s Black Ice are Young/Young compositions. Rock Or Bust (2014), missing Malcolm, who died in 2017, was also credited as Young/Young.

Post-1980 is not my favourite AC/DC era but “Spellbound” really stands as a lasting monument to the genius of Mutt Lange, a man whose finely tuned ear and attention to detail filed the rough edges of Vanda & Young–era AC/DC and turned this commercially underperforming band for Atlantic Records into one of the biggest in the world with Highway To Hell (1979) and Back In Black (1980).On “Spellbound” AC/DC sounds as majestic as it does bombastic. Lange just amplifies the band's natural power an extra notch. It’s crisp sounding, laden with dynamics and builds awesomely when Angus launches into his solo.

“Spellbound” is the closer on For Those About To Rock We Salute You, the last album Lange did with AC/DC, so chronologically it’s a significant song; it marks the end of an important era. For Those About To Rock was an unhappy experience for a lot of people. There was a lot of blood being spilled behind the scenes. It went to number one in the US but commercially was a massive disappointment after the performance of Back In Black. Much of the blame lies at the feet of Atlantic Records, then under Doug Morris, who made the decision to exhume an album they’d shelved in 1976, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, and release it in-between Back In Black and For Those About To Rock. Ironically Morris now heads up Sony, AC/DC’s new home.In The Youngs (2013), Phil Carson, who signed AC/DC to Atlantic, calls it “one of the most crass decisions ever made by a record-company executive” and believes it undermined sales of For Those About to Rock. I think he’s right.

“GIMME A BULLET”(Powerage, 1978)​This was the song that began my personal Conradian journey into the music of Bon Scott and the Young brothers. It opens my 2013 book, The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC, as it was the song that, at a crucial juncture in my life, connected me with AC/DC on an emotional and physical level I’d never experienced before, and it made me a fan.After the book came out in Australia, I gave a lift one night to Mark Evans, AC/DC’s bass player from 1975–77. We had just visited AC/DC drummer Tony Currenti at his pizzeria in Penshurst. My daughter Billie, Mark and I drove through the western suburbs of Sydney listening to songs off Powerage, Highway To Hell and Let There Be Rock. It was surreal: driving around midnight, AC/DC cranked up full volume like something out of Wayne’s World, with a guy who used to be in AC/DC in the back seat, singing along with Billie and me. I’ll never forget it.

I dedicatedThe Youngsto Mark, Tony and late Atlantic Records executive Michael Klenfner. Mark told me he’d gone away after reading The Youngs and re-listened to Powerage. He’d been in an adjoining studio playing with another band when some of it was recorded andGeorge Younghad even borrowed his guitar (asCliff Williamshad had visa problems entering Australia).After re-listening to the album, Mark was convinced George Young had played bass on the album (there are previously unpublished photos inThe Youngsfrom inside the studio of George playing bass with Angus and Malcolm). Perhaps that was why the bass on “Gimme A Bullet” was so good and so much notier than Cliff’s usual contributions. Some of the bass on the album could well be Cliff, who eventually arrived in Australia and went into the studio–his name appears on the album and the official line is that he was the bass player. EngineerMark Opitzinsists it was Cliff and Cliff himself says he played on the whole album. But, for listeners at least, whose bass playing finally ended up being used on each track in the final analysis is up for debate.

Phil Rudd, George Young, Malcolm Young, Angus Young

Listen to it yourself and decide. I've written a whole separate story about the bass onPowerage, which you can read here. There’s a history of George Young playing uncredited bass on AC/DC records. Personally, I think it’s one of their greatest songs, notable for the lack of a solo from Angus Young (though the great Filippo Olivieri aka Solo Dallas does a great version with a solo)--and, as I write inThe Youngs, it stopped me from doing something stupid at a weak moment. So it has personal resonance and significance to me; the best music always does. Powerage, 40 years old this year, is unquestionably the band’s masterpiece.

Compiling a list of any “best ofs” is usually a fraught task when it comes to one’s favourite band, especially a group as mighty as Bon Scott–era AC/DC. Bon wrote some of the best rock songs ever recorded over his short career with AC/DC, a band he joined in 1974, yet the focus of my book, BON: THE LAST HIGHWAY, is specifically his time in America, 1977–79, and his death in London in 1980.

How to pick just a few when so many — dozens, in reality — would be worthy?But when I was asked by my North American editors at ECW Press to come up with 5 songs had “particular significance to his story and his death”, it was a fairly straightforward exercise. These are the 5 songs that are a kind of aural roadmap to Bon’s life during the 1977–80 period and reflect key events or themes in the book.​1. “GONE SHOOTIN’” (1978)

Bon told the audience in Columbus in September 1978 that this standout track from Powerage was “a lady who took it upon herself to do whatever she wanted to do”. That lady was Silver Smith, Bon’s muse and tormentor, who earlier that year in Sydney had broken up with him to go “overland” through Asia with their mutual friend, Joe Fury. But the lyrics in the song are actually about her decision to leave Bon behind in Indianapolis, Indiana, in December 1977, where she bought a train ticket west. Her plan was to go out to California. Hence the first verse:

Feel the pressure riseHear the whistle blowBought a ticket of her own accordTo I don’t know

Silver was a heroin user, as were many people in Bon’s orbit, so he makes a sly reference to it in the lyrics and well as the title of the song.

I stirred my coffee with the same spoonKnew her favourite tuneGone shootin’My baby’s gone shootin’

Silver, who died in December 2016, told me she never injected heroin. So why, then, did he insert make a reference to a spoon?“Some poetic licence,” she said. “‘Gone Snortin’” doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it?”

2. “DOWN PAYMENT BLUES” (1978)​

Arguably Bon’s finest moment as a songwriter. This song, which has its origins in a rough 1976 composition called “Rock ’N’ Roll Blues”, contains some of the best lines he ever put to paper:

No, I ain't doing muchDoing nothing means a lot to me

Living on a shoestringA 50-cent millionaire

I got myself a CadillacBut I can’t afford the gasoline

Can’t even feed my catOn social security

Feeling like a paper cupFloating down a storm drain

I got holes in my shoesAnd I'm way overdue

The whole song is just a brilliant piece of writing.Bon never had much money during his time with AC/DC. He was constantly borrowing money or getting other people to pay his bills. When he died in February 1980, thanks to the breakthrough of Highway To Hell, he had just over $30,000 from album royalties in his savings account. That was the sum of his entire estate.Doug Thaler, AC/DC’s booking agent for their American tours during that period, told me he got a phone call from Bon just before he died.“Highway To Hell was just about platinum by then and I congratulated him on that – I said something like, ‘You’ll finally have some real money for your pocket now.’ He said that with all the newfound success, nothing had trickled down to him yet so his life was still the same as it had been. It was only a couple of weeks later that I got the call from [AC/DC manager] David Krebs that he’d been found dead in a car in London.”

3. “GIRLS GOT RHYTHM” (1979)

The late Beth Quartiano

Michael Fazzolare and his punk-rock band Critical Mass hung out with AC/DC during their Miami rehearsals for the Highway To Hell album. Bon had a gorgeous teenage lover in Key Biscayne called Holly X and was having a fine time, contrary to his well-known quip that the city was “God’s waiting room”. This song most likely was about Holly X or another of his Miami lovers, Pattee Bishop and Beth Quartiano.AC/DC had just parted ways with Vanda & Young as their producers and were in Florida to work with Eddie Kramer at Criteria Recording Studios, which didn’t turn out well. In the end, they ended up recording the album at Roundhouse Studios in London with Mutt Lange, who gave the band a much more polished, commercial sound. You can really notice the difference in the backing vocals, especially.As Fazzolare recalled about the writing of “Girls Got Rhythm”: “Malcolm Young asked the band if they were all aboard in going with this more refined, slightly more dynamic commercial style. They were writing ‘Girls Got Rhythm’, and Bon was singing some racy lyrics: The girl’s got rhythm, she’s got the freestyle rhythm. [Laughs] Malcolm stops playing and says, ‘Mate, those words are a bit too strong. We need to tone it down a little.’ Of course, the lyric became the back seat rhythm. To be honest, I didn’t see the difference. Then again I was 23 so my imagination was very active.”

4. “TOUCH TOO MUCH” (1979)

A very sexual song containing some great writing from Bon:

She had the face of an angelSmiling with sinA body of Venus with arms

It’s a song about Holly X, according to Michael Fazzolare: “I still say ‘Touch Too Much’ is about Holly.” According to Holly’s friend Liz Klein: “Bon was madly in love with Holly. She was always gorgeous, still is; just a beautiful woman, really beautiful inside and out. She had just like a perfect body.”

Holly X

5. “HIGHWAY TO HELL” (1979)

Bon’s career apogee and the inspiration for the title of the book and its narrative arc from Route 79 outside Milano, Texas, to Overhill Road in East Dulwich, London. An all-time classic that remains as popular and powerful as the day it was released. Doesn’t get any better, really. Not much more I need to add, though anyone interested in World War II history might appreciate a clipping I found from 1943 that is probably the first mention of a Highway to Hell, bizarrely from Egypt. It was the name given to “a crude strip of rocks and brushwood flung into the marshy land of the wadi – the almost-dry river bed – by British engineers under artillery cover in their week-end attack against the Nazi strongpoint… the thin line of communication and supply across the wadi for the British… a bottleneck for tanks and guns."

BONUS TRACK: “NIGHT PROWLER” (1979)

This track’s mysterious sign-off — “Shazbot Nanu Nanu”, the last words ever spoken by Bon on an AC/DC album — has nothing really to do with Bon being a fan of Mork & Mindy. It’s a reference to a guy called Teddy Rooney, who was the son of Mickey Rooney and played bass in a Miami band called Tight Squeeze. Rooney jammed with AC/DC in rehearsals. He died in 2016.Says Michael Fazzolare: “It was something we were all saying when we hung out, which was started by Teddy. He was the one who went around using the phrase. We would all chime in on occasion. I would guess it winding up on the album was either a nod from Bon to Teddy himself or a nod to the entire Miami gang.”

Over the five or so years I spent writing two books on AC/DC by far the most rewarding experience was getting to know and become friends with Tony Currenti, an old friend of Bon Scott's and the drummer on AC/DC’s first album, the 1975 Australian release of High Voltage.In 2012, 37 years on from AC/DC's debut record, I managed to track down Tony at his pizzeria in Penshurst, southern Sydney: Tonino's. It didn’t take much detective work. I found him on Facebook. He had about 50 friends.

Tony interviewed on Italian TV

Recording High Voltage, 1974

Tony hadn’t spoken to any author, ever. I couldn’t believe my luck. By his own account this avuncular 67-year-old Italian-Australian was asked to join AC/DC twice. He’d played on records that had sold millions (High Voltage--the Australian and U.S. versions --T.N.T, ’74 Jailbreak, Backtracks).But at the time I met him for various reasons he hadn’t touched a drum kit since 1977, after giving away music to start a family and a business.He formed a small but significant part of AC/DC history – truly an incredible tale – and it was my special privilege to tell his story. What was better, however, is everything that came after my first book on the band was published.

Recording in Spain

Handling drumsticks for the first time in 37 years. Thanks, Noel Taylor

It has brought me so much personal satisfaction to see Tony finally get the acknowledgment he deserves from fans around the world. Some of those remarkable fans, including You Am Idrummer Rusty Hopkinson, banded together in 2014 and bought Tony a new set of Pearl drums when they heard that his old Ludwig set was unplayable.When he appeared on stage with me at the Sydney Writers' Festival that same year he was a crowd favourite. Wherever he goes in the world, no one fails to be touched by his easygoing charm and complete humility.After some tentative steps back into the live scene, and tips from former AC/DC drummer Noel Taylor, Tony's first proper gig in 38 years was at The Bridge Hotel, Sydney, in 2014 withThe Choirboys: a truly magical moment for anyone who was there to see him play the song “High Voltage”. Tony was as nervous as hell and showing every sign of that nervousness when he first got up to play, but once the band kicked into gear, he was away. He hasn't looked back since.

He began playing weekend concerts regularly with Australian AC/DC tribute bandsLet There Be BonandDirty Deeds, started amassing thousands of new friends on Facebook (well over 4000, including his own tribute page), and in July/August 2015 he played his first European shows with tribute bands in Italy, England and Spain. In the space of five years he's now played hundreds of shows. What this man has achieved during his second wind as a drummer – after four decades away from the stage – has been immense.It's certainly not lost on parochial Italians that Tony is the only full-blooded Italian to have ever played for AC/DC, so I've been super proud to see him get great coverage in the Italian press, sell out shows in Sicily and on the European mainland, and get repeat invitations to come back and do it all over again, year after year. In Australia, meanwhile, typically, we are slow to embrace our musical history. When I pitched Tony's story to the ABC's Australian Story, for example,they expressed zero interest. Radio silence.

With Anthony Stocqueler and Mark Bradbury from Let There Be Bon. Stocqueler and Bradbury travelled hundreds of kilometres from their homes outside Sydney to help Tony get back his drumming skills

In Scotland with Slovakian AC/DC fan Peter Pis who made T-shirts for Tony and former AC/DC bass player Mark Evans

Outside of music, Tony can still be found most nights at Tonino’s making supreme pizzas, and that’s what makes him great. He’s free of the sort of ego that makes most former rock stars unbearable company. Even when people spell or pronounce his name wrong, which they do constantly (I cannot understand why, it's really not hard), he just shrugs and laughs.Tony's not perfect. There are some things about him that frustrate me – he won't give up cigarettes, has resisted my attempts to introduce the She's Got Balls (meatballs), Soul Stripper (chilli) and Crabsody In Blue (seafood) line of pizzas, and is far, far too nice to ask for what he wants, so unscrupulous people in the music and music-festival industries shamefully continue to take advantage of him financially – but that is who he is. I accept there are some things about him you just can't change. The arc of Tony’s story really is a movie waiting to happen: as good as ​Billy Elliott, Searching for Sugar Man or The Full Monty. I don’t think you could get a better immigrant tale. It has everything you could ask for and just happens to involve the biggest rock band in the world.He migrated to Australia from Sicily in 1967 and learned to play drums by playing spoons on his piano accordion and any spare chairs he could find. True story. That he then went on to play with AC/DC really is something from the realm of science fiction. You couldn’t make it up.Tony isn’t in AC/DC today because he was fiercely loyal to a group of “wogs,” as he calls them, known as Jackie Christian & Flight who were an Albert Productions recording act and had a couple of songs written for them by George Young, one called “Love", the other called “The Last Time I Go To Baltimore.”

With his doppelganger George Young recording High Voltage

They also played the music for Ray Burgess’s huge Australian hit, “Love Fever.” Jackie Christian & Flight thought they were on the cusp of greatness, but Tony picked the wrong band. His Italian passport didn’t help either. If he’d joined AC/DC and gone to England, it would have meant he’d have to stop in Rome. There he would have been conscripted into the Italian army for military service.So he turned down AC/DC. He has no regrets. And why would he? He played on most of the best songs on High Voltage, including the single. He played on Stevie Wright’s classic epic, “Evie” (that’s him on Part III), and “Black Eyed Bruiser.” He played on stage with AC/DC at Chequers in Goulburn Street, Sydney, in 1975. He laid down the drums for John Paul Young’s “I Hate the Music” and “Yesterday’s Hero.” He was George Young’s favourite session drummer and so many of Tony’s tracks are now on AC/DC releases and box sets that have sold millions of copies. ’74 Jailbreak, an EP which came out in 1984, has five songs on it. Three of them feature Tony’s drumming.Tony only got $35 an hour for his session work and that was enough for him. All he ever wanted was to meet the Youngs again, especially George, but he didn't get that chance. George and Malcolm passed away in 2017.So my fervent wish is that Angus Young picks up the phone and makes an old man happy. Tony Currenti is living music history and deserves adequate recognition not from fans, who have already taken him to their hearts, but AC/DC itself. He’s not after money. He’s far, far too modest for that. As he always has been.